This week, Kit faces the fight of his life. His challenge? Convince Roland that he is not in fact a brazen con-man, and he deserves to keep his job. The only problem with that? Roland doesn’t believe a word that comes out his mouth. Things are about to get interesting.

About

The second episode of The Kit Curran Radio Show, ‘The New Broom’, aired on the 9th of April 1984 on ITV. Produced by Thames Television and written by Andy Hamilton, it stars Denis Lawson as ‘Kit Curran’, Clive Merrison as ‘Damien Appleby’, Paul Brooke as ‘Les Toms’ and Brian Wilde as ‘Roland Simpson’. Additional guest stars this episode include Debbi Blythe as ‘Sally Beamish’, Joseph Marcell as ‘Constantine’ and Maev Alexander as ‘Joanne Short’.

Availability: Out on Region 2 DVD as of 2018. Be aware that the iTunes version is actually Series 2 mislabelled as Series 1. The watch quality of the DVD is better than these screencaps suggest—it’s certainly an improvement over the VHS rips of re-runs that were circling before it was released—but you can tell the footage hasn’t been best preserved.

Continue reading “The Kit Curran Radio Show, Episode Two: The New Broom”

Oh, Kit Curran. Kit is the very definition of a problematic fave. He’s endlessly charming, but as the DVD case puts it: he’s a disk-jockey, flyboy, con-man, compulsive fibber, and worse! A little bit like the series itself, honestly. There’s some really delightful comedy, a few great political jabs, and some really quite excellent character work from the entire cast. It is also very of its time. Some of the jokes miss the mark, especially to a modern audience, and the laughter of the studio audience can be a little disconcerting. It’s still pretty watchable—if you can find a copy, which has got much easier recently—and certainly hasn’t aged as badly as some of its contemporaries.

This week, we’re looking at the very first episode, in which we meet all the delightful personalities that make up Radio Newtown, and set the stage for the comedy of errors that will ensue over the series.

About

The first episode of The Kit Curran Radio Show, ‘End of an Era’, aired on the 2nd of April 1984 on ITV. Produced by Thames Television and written by Andy Hamilton, it stars Denis Lawson as ‘Kit Curran’, Clive Merrison as ‘Damien Appleby’, Paul Brooke as ‘Les Toms’ and Brian Wilde as ‘Roland Simpson’.

Availability: Out on Region 2 DVD as of 2018. Be aware that the iTunes version is actually Series 2 mislabelled as Series 1. The watch quality of the DVD is better than these screencaps suggest—it’s certainly an improvement over the VHS rips of re-runs that were circling before it was released—but you can tell the footage hasn’t been best preserved.

Continue reading “The Kit Curran Radio Show, Episode One: End of an Era”